NEWS: RED BULL RAMPAGE 2017

Red Bull Rampage is back again at the Zion National Park in Virgin, Utah with the world’s best mountain bike freeriders keen to carve out a winning line for Friday’s event. Time to get into the mood.

DIG YOUR OWN LINE!

Rampage is fairly unique in the elite sporting world for letting the competitors prepare their own insane natural lines into savage drops, jumps and berms to try and score the best points total from the judges. This week’s 12th edition boasts a new ridgeline, which sits to the rider’s right of the existing terrain from last year’s event where Canadian Brandon Semenuk wrapped up his second title from Antoine Bizet and Carson Storch in dramatic windy conditions. Kurt Sorge and Kyle Strait are also targeting the first Rampage win hat-trick as the field of 21 and their two-person build crews create their own man-made line down the near-vertical sandstone mountain without the use of power tools.

(Brett Rheeder)

BUILD IT RIDE IT

A few days of building are followed by four more days on their bikes to hopefully carve out a winning run that can elevate or keep them at MTB’s freeride top table.Using a pickaxe and shovel for days can cause blisters on the riders’ hands, which is not the best preparation to help control landings from 65-foot gap jumps on their two race runs - something that marks out Rampage on the annual MTB calendar. The crack line-up of riders from seven different countries will be judged on their line choice, airtime, tricks, style, fluidity and speed down the mountain to the finish line below packed with loud fans.